The aqueous fluids, such as water, usually contain metallic salts therein, said metallic salts, when in solution in aqueous fluids, are dissociated into cations and anions, causing hardness in the water, that is, they have a tendency to corrode the metallic tubing, particularly galvanized iron tubing, and the metallic containers through which the fluids flow and wherein the fluids are stored. In order to reduce the corrosive effect of the water or aqueous fluids flowing through the metallic tubing or contained in water tanks or condensation towers, etc., either the tubing or the container must be made corrosion resistant or the water must be made less corrosive. The stainless steel is corrosion resistant, but using it is often impractical or too costly. The removing of the metallic salts from the water will soften the water and will tend to make it less corrosive.
Once the impurities are forced to be suspended, these impurities may be removed by purging the system by means of the employment of a trap which can be also removed.
On the other hand, as it is well known, energy preservation and the pollution problem are atracting a big deal of attention, especially in the oil and oil based fuels areas. The automobile is one of the main consumers of oil in the form of gasoline, and a very significant energy preservation could be obtained by improving the fuel combustion procedure in the internal combustion engines. Therefore, a great effort is being directed to the output of a major amount of work of the automobile engine for the same amount of fuel consumed. A desirable sub-product of a more efficient combustion is that the engine exhaust emissions are generally cleaner because the fuel is more completely burnt.
Several attempts have been made in the past in order to eliminate the water or aqueous fluids impurities and in order to improve the fuel combustion characteristics, and they have included, in the case of water and aqueous fluids, the use of filters, ultrafiltration devices and chemical substances which are very costly.
Relating the object of improvement the combustion characteristics of the fuel, there have been used, among others, electrostatic fields applied through the fuel as it flows to the combustion chamber. On the other hand, it is known in the prior art, for example U.S. Pat. No. 4,429,665, describes a device and a method for treating fuel wherein the device comprises a housing through which the fuel passes, an elongated metallic bar within said housing for contact with the fuel, the metallic bar comprising an alloy made of nickel, zinc, copper, tin and silver, having a platinum coating, the method comprising the step of passing the fuel in contact with said alloy bar.
Finally, there are known a lot of devices made from different alloys, but these alloys contain lead as a component thereof, which represents an inconvenience because of the well known polluting and poisoning characteristics of lead.